


text messages to no one

by schlimmbesserung



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Humanstuck, i guess?????, really not sure what to tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-17 09:37:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schlimmbesserung/pseuds/schlimmbesserung
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a point when you thought time had stopped, like the world couldn't possibly keep turning, life couldn't possibly go on. And yet here you sit, a whole three seasons come and gone. You take out your phone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	text messages to no one

It’s raining. Well, actually, it’s just sort of misting enough to get you uncomfortably wet, but not enough to use an umbrella without looking like a tool. You throw up your hood and pull the drawstrings tight, shoving your hands into your pockets. The bench you’re sitting on is cold and damp, but the bus is running late again and you’d rather not spend the wait standing.  
  
Your knuckles brush against your iPhone in your pocket and you absently wrap your fingers around it, turning it slowly in your hand. The clouds are gray and the buildings are gray and the concrete is gray. Everything is gray. You can scarcely tell where the city stops and the sky begins. Absently, you pull your phone out of your pocket to check the messages. The screen quickly begins to speckle. You have to periodically wipe it clean with the cuff of your sleeve as you scroll down, down.  
  
Karkat was pestering you about something while you were in physics, but judging from the first two words that message doesn’t even look worth reading. Terezi has left you a handful of colorful threats. You think she’s finally starting to catch on to who has been hacking her website, but she claims she needs more hard evidence before she can “3V1SC3R4T3 YOU 1N TH3 COURT OF L4W >;]”  
  
You’re chuckling quietly to yourself when you stumble across a conversation that’s several months old. The laughter shrivels up and dies in your throat.  
  
Then, for some ludicrous reason, you find yourself typing out a message. Your fingers move deftly, quick and easy, like the weeks were merely minutes. When you tap the send button, the sense of gravity you expected is not there. The universe doesn't come grinding to a halt, paradox space doesn't collapse in on itself, your phone doesn't spontaneously explode. It's like nothing even happened.

 

 

 

  
For a long time, you just stare blankly at the screen (you're not waiting, you're _not_ ). You stare until the words blur behind droplets of rain and the bus wheezes to a stop in front of you, the doors hissing open. You slip the phone back into your pocket.  
  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Finals are coming on fast and (while _you_ aren’t really worried about it) Karkat’s completely flipping his shit, stomping around the dorm room, tossing old test papers and textbooks around left and right.  
  
“How the _fuck_ do they expect me to study without a fucking study guide?” he seethes, tearing through  his desk drawers. “What kind of perverse, sadistic fucking dick fondler of a professor doesn’t give out a study guide for finals? _Fuck._ ”  
  
In the spirit of blocking out his existence, you snuggle into your pillow and roll over to face the wall. You start texting, “ii heard you got--” but then you’re mashing the end button, lips pursed into a thin line. No, no that isn't right.  
  
“Hey, can I borrow your trig notes?” Karkat asks, voice hoarse from yelling.  
  
“No, fuck you.”  
  
“Oh my God, Sollux, now is not the time for you to be a stingy shithead.”  
  
“Like you could even begin to understand my shorthand, KK,” you lisp back, exasperated.  
  
You hear a backpack being unzipped. “You just fucking watch me. I’m using them anyway. Fuck _you_ and your cocky superiority bullshit.”  
  
With a histrionic roll of your eyes, you focus your attention once again on your phone.

 

 

 

  
Karkat doesn't even acknowldge you cramming your feet into your shoes and leaving the room. You ghost down the hallway, ascend the dimly lit staircase, and when you step out onto the rooftop, no one is there.  
  
Wind tugs at your clothes and nips at your ears. A shiver rattles up your spine. You trudge over to the ledge and sit down, gazing out across campus. It’s ugly now that all the trees have lost their leaves, their branches twisting up towards the sky like hundreds of knobby, outstretched hands. The snow is filthy with footsteps and pollution. Your heart aches.

 

 

 

  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Christmas is a hectic affair, a headache you’d rather not deal with in the first place. Everyone meets up at Gamzee’s place, simply for the convenience of its location, but his apartment is small and you all are many in number. It’s cramped and stuffy and loud.  
  
John is driving Karkat up a wall with his “good natured pranks”, Tavros and Vriska are bickering (if you can even call it that), Rose and Kanaya are trying really hard to organize presents, Eridan is show-boating his new girlfriend Feferi, and everyone else is simply talking over each other. You slink off to the bathroom and lock yourself inside. Your head feels like it's about to split and you entertain the thought of shoving toilet paper in your ears to block out the noise.

 

 

 

  
You start when someone bangs on the door.  
  
"Sollux, hurry up, dickweed!" Karkat shouts. "We're about to open presents!"  
  
Begrudgingly, you emerge from the bathroom. Somehow, everyone has mananged to gather around the Christmas tree, piled on the couch and the floor and each other. You squeeze into the spot between Dave and Karkat, ignoring the sour look the latter shoots you when you (not so) accidentally jab him in the ribs with an elbow.  
  
The whole room feels empty to you. It’s missing something important.  
  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
New year’s slips by in a drunken haze and then school’s back in session. You hit the ground running, spending most of your time holed up in the library and pouring over political science books. It’s literally the _only_ subject you don’t take to naturally and it’s infuriating beyond belief. You vow that by the time you graduate you'll have taken every political science course the university has to offer and passed it with an A.  
  
You bump into Feferi there one day, curled quietly in a secluded corner with her books and notes scattered haphazardly around her. She greets you with a bouyant "hello!" and an offer to join her. Turns out she’s a poli-sci major, and you two start spending a lot of time together. She has as an easiness about her that's relaxing, and a smile that reaches her eyes. She reminds you of somebody that you used to know, not so long ago.  
  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
You decide to start saving up for an apartment with Karkat, which means you have to suffer through a shitty, minimum wage job between classes. It’s really only bad during the morning rush, the rest of the day you mostly just dick around and people watch. Feferi eats lunch with you on your break, and Karkat and Terezi usually swing by after their evening classes to hang out until your shift ends, so you stay fairly entertained throughout the day.  
  
Sometimes, though, when things are really dead, there’s no one to talk to and no interesting people to spy on and the manager isn’t looking, you’ll whip out your phone and pad a quick, clandestine message.

 

 

 

  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
You're surprised when you step out of your dorm building and find that you have no need for your jacket today. You shimmy out of it and shove it into your backpack, then proceed walking to class. The sun is crisp and bright, warm on your back as you walk, and the sky stretches out above you blue and unbroken. As you meander through the campus grounds you notice leaves are budding on the trees. Somewhere a pair of birds are chittering back and forth. You had nearly forgotten it was spring already. You arrive at the classroom a little earlier than you anticipated, so you flop down on one of the couches lining the hallways. Spring already, you think again.  
  
There was a point when you thought time had stopped, like the world couldn't _possibly_ keep turning, life couldn't _possibly_ go on. And yet here you sit, a whole three seasons come and gone. You take out your phone.

 

 

 

  
You sigh and tilt your head back until it touches the wall behind you, closing your eyes and waiting for the ping of a reply that's never going to come. You're almost okay with that.  
  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
The days keep bleeding by, one by one. For spring break you tag along with Eridan and Feferi to Cancun, where Feferi does, in fact, force you to swim. Eridan gloats about how much better he is at it than you until you literally want to bash his snooty face in, but Feferi manages to wind you both down before it comes to that. When you get back to uni, classes pick up like they'd never stopped, and before you know it finals is rearing it's ugly head again.

 

 

 

  
It's like that now. Used to be you'd remember every single text you sent her, along with all the things around you when you sent it, every detail down to the what you were thinking and the way the air tasted. Now the messages you send are starting to become jumbled and foggy. You don't think about her constantly anymore. Every now and again something will randomly strike you, but the times are growing few and far between.  
  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
School comes to an end rather anticlimatically. You pass poli-sci with an A and high-five Feferi so hard your hand stings. Gamzee graduates and almost immediately gets a job with the city orchestra, subseqeuntly shitting on everyone who said he'd live out his post-college days as a starving street musician. Eridan and Feferi get engaged. You and Karkat sign the lease on your new apartment. It's pretty empty now, but soon you two will have it full of useless trinkets, ratty furniture, and piles of garbage and then it'll feel like home. Terezi unofficially moves in with you, which brings Vriska around much more than you would prefer. You hear Tavros is finally getting those prosthetic legs.  
  
All in all, time keeps pushing forward. You're almost happy.  
  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"Hey," you say, shifting awkwardly. "It's... been a long time. A whole year today, as a matter of fact."  
  
Gingerly, you sit down cross-legged in the grass. You have a feeling you're going to be here for a while.  
  
"Sorry I didn't come sooner. I brought you these," you hold out the bouquet of dried flowers and weeds. "They're your favorite. Y'know, the dead kind."  
  
It's an almost embarrassingly sentimental gesture, now that you think about it. You tuck the present in amongst the other baubles and flora lining the tombstone, wondering vaguely who put them there. No one ever told you when they were going to see her grave. You can't really say you blame them.  
  
"Are dead jokes still okay, or was that insensitive?" your chuckle trails into silence.   
  
You tug idly at the grass and listen to the wind whisper through the willow trees. Your eyes skim over the rows of marble headstones, the rolling hills, the lake off in the distance where people are throwing bread to the ducks and swans. You can almost understand why she enjoyed this place so much when she was alive; it's tranquil.  
  
"I still miss you," you say. "So much. More than anything."  
  
You remember the shape of her eyes, the way her lips curled when she smiled. Her hair and how it spilled down her back and over her shoulder like sleek, black water. She smelled like strawberries and looked like a hollywood burnout in her worn down sneakers and thrift store clothes. Her voice was sweet as honey and her laughter was infectious. You miss staying up late and watching scaries movies together, falling asleep with her curled in your arms and waking up with her lips against yours. You miss everything about her.  
  
Tears prick at your eyes, not for the first time and certainly not for the last. It's okay, you know she would tell you. It's okay.   
  
"But it's getting easier."

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](http://doortraveler.deviantart.com/art/Text-Messages-to-No-One-213146131)


End file.
